Page 109 of Happily Never After

Water poured into the vehicle. Her feet and ankles were soaked. The smell of mud and vegetation instantly transported her back to the Jet Ski proposal she had coordinated in a river back home. But there would be no tuxedo-wetsuit-wearing groom coming to her rescue today.

The man ripped furiously at his seatbelt.

“Ma’am?” The voice from her purse was louder now. The operator must have been practically shouting.

“Sorry, sorry,” Claire choked out over the burn in her esophagus. “I pepper sprayed him and the car crashed into the river.”

There was a sigh on the other end of the phone. She faintly heard the operator requesting the fire department and water rescue.

“Claire, what I need you to do is?—”

“This is your fault!” The man lashed out with his right hand. It clipped Claire across the face, and her phone tumbled into the murky water.

She searched frantically through the water, which was now up to her waist. By the time her waterlogged phone emerged from the depths, it was dead. Her only link to the outside world was gone. She was trapped in a fast-sinking car with a homicidal maniac.

“My fault?” She coughed as the water reached her elbows. “You’re the one who kidnapped me!”

“You deserve much worse than a watery grave,” the man hissed. He blinked almost constantly in the rearview mirror, but there was no mistaking the malice in his eyes.

“Oh, fuck you.” She slung her soggy purse across her shoulder and tossed her dead phone inside. Nothing a bowl of rice couldn’t fix. Assuming she lived.

Her captor wrenched his seatbelt back and forth, vinyl scraping against plastic, but it didn’t budge. For once, karma was delivering justice.

Where was it? She dug around in her now-muddy purse. Tablet. Breath mints. Sticky notes. Dog treats. Aha! The combination flashlight/seatbelt cutter/window breaker Alice had given her four years ago. Her entire life now rested in the hands of a product she had never intended to review on Amazon, much less use in an emergency.

The water brushed her chin and goosebumps scattered up and down her arms. Sunlight dappled on the water as the muddy river crept ever higher up the windshield. She turned the flashlight on and clipped it to her purse. Her chin tipped to the ceiling, and she took slow, measured breaths. Her limbs trembled. Adrenaline surged in her veins. At least the burn was subsiding from her eyes.

Her captor was now openly hyperventilating and crying in his seat. The crash must have damaged his buckle.

Claire paused, hand on her emergency tool. Could she let him die? Would she watch another human being drown in front of her? If anyone deserved to die, it was this idiot. Wouldn’t one less murderer in the world be a good thing?

The last of the daylight slipped out of view as the car sank below water level. This was it. The water crept up the man’s chin, covered his mouth. His eyes opened wide, pleading with her in the rearview mirror.

She clutched the tool, frozen to the spot. The plastic pressed into her hand. She had seconds to make this decision.

Did he have a family? Would a cop knock on his mother’s door to tell her that her son was dead? And someone could have saved him but chose not to?

“Fuck.” Claire floated between the front seats. The water was almost to the ceiling. She took a deep breath and plunged beneath the flood, feeling around blindly until she located his lap belt. Everything was muffled.

She aimed the blade and sawed. Seconds passed. Was it working? She opened her eyes, but all she could see was muddy water and the faint glow of her flashlight.

She had waited too long. Now she was going to drown right alongside this idiot. She sawed again, harder and faster. Seconds crept by. Something gave. The man thrashed and flung the severed belt aside. Claire swam to the back seat and felt around until she located the handle. Her captor was on his own now.

She yanked on the latch until the door opened, drifting on its hinges. She kicked off the sideboard and surged into the river. Her lungs screamed for air.

Something caught her ankle, and she gasped. Bubbles of the breath that burned in her lungs drifted in front of her, rushing to the surface. Particles of mud swirled around rays of sun. She kicked. Her heel connected with something, and the weight around her ankle left. She kicked violently, surging toward the surface.

Her head broke through, and she gasped, sucking down the smog-polluted air like it was a glass of chilled rosé on a sultry summer evening. The river current dragged at her as she took breath after breath, dizzy with relief. Oxygen rushed into her lungs, invigorating her. She bobbled in the water, floating like an overdressed cork. Time to reassess.

Sirens wailed above her. The traffic on the bridge had stopped. The guard rail above was warped as if it had melted in the sun. A beady-eyed blue heron lurked beneath the bridge.

She wasn’t a great swimmer. Never had been. But she sure as hell wasn’t about to drown in a dirty concrete river in Los Angeles. Not after everything she had faced. Stubbornly driving one arm into the water and then the other, she swam to the bank.

Her waterlogged sneakers squelched as she climbed to her feet. There was a one hundred percent chance that she looked like a drowned sewer rat. Her phone and tablet were surely fried. But by some miracle, she was alive.

Where was he? The thought hit her like a lightning bolt. Cops and firefighters swarmed down the sides of the bridge. She whirled around. It was difficult to make out at this distance, but she could swear a pair of wet footprints went up the opposite bank and disappeared. Son of a bitch.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

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